


Calm Before

by WitchesFondestDream



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Remus Lupin Lives, Short One Shot, Sirius Black Lives, Sirius has PTSD, Slash, Storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 21:54:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11792250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WitchesFondestDream/pseuds/WitchesFondestDream
Summary: Sirius is restless as a storm approaches.





	Calm Before

**Author's Note:**

> Wolfstar, post -war. Rated for panic attack imagery. For the purposes of this, Remus survived the battle and Sirius never fell through the veil. Then, obvs, they SHACKED UP, pardon the pun. Characters belong to J.K. Rowling.

It needed to rain. It had needed to for what seemed like forever – the last week had dragged in a haze of grit and stickiness, and no matter where Sirius went he felt as though he’d crawled into an oven, and some malevolent hand had slammed the door shut and turned up the heat.

They had both felt the storm coming as the afternoon wore on, the heat becoming denser as the clouds bore down over their little home, the choked air dragging at their limbs. Remus had lounged in his armchair, quiet and moody, his joints feeling the ache of an almost-full moon. Amber-flecked eyes had been burning into some tome or another for hours, and Sirius hadn’t been able to stand it – How could he sit so still, when it felt like the sky was falling in?

Sirius had made an attempt at his jog, lest his brain turn completely to mush. He hated this heaviness, this clammy sedation, and he fought against it as he ran, upping his pace, pounding against the grass with his feet, trying to shake the feeling of hands pulling him into the earth… by the time he’d reached he back door again he was exhausted and his lungs burned and the sweat poured off him in rivers, slicking stray strands of hair to his forehead. Despite the heat, it was no bright summer’s day – the sky was packed with grey, threatening clouds. Sirius took a quick glance at the grey tendrils suspended above him, unmoving, eerie in their stillness, and something completely unrelated to physical exertion gripped his chest from the inside. He ducked inside, suddenly wanting to hide.

“There’ll be a storm.” Remus’ eyes had taken a break from scrutinizing his book and had lifted to the window, gazing into the grey abyss. Sirius grunted, kicking his trainers off and shuffling through into the hallway, wanting nothing more than to put himself under a stream of cold water and stay there.

Sleeping arrangements were always tricky when the weather was warm – Remus ran a couple of degrees warmer than the average man, and although Sirius had never heard any such complaint on the matter out loud, Sirius had spent enough restless nights lying awake gazing at his partner to know the signs of discomfort – sweat beading along his spine, limbs arranged just so, not touching Sirius nor the covers nor even each other, the tightness in his jaw and miniscule furrow of his brow that appeared whenever he was uncomfortable, but getting on with it.  They were here again tonight, Remus quietly drifting into sleep more out of necessity than tiredness, his body resigning itself to what would happen to it in the nights to come. Sirius wide awake, watching Remus breathe, in, out, in, out, slow and alive, warming his heart. Aching to stroke that long back, to kiss those scars goodnight, but knowing he mustn’t – must be good, must behave, must let Moony get some sleep.

Sirius shifted awkwardly on the bed, the sheets feeling scratchy and clinging beneath him. Remus had kicked the duvet away hours ago in a fit of frustration, and he knew if he recovered it he’d boil beneath it, but he felt exposed – a nakedness that went deeper than simply not wearing any clothes.  There were rumbles and growls churning above him now, the approaching storm prowling and snarling and really not very far away.

The sky was finally beginning to squeeze fat droplets from its grey folds. Sirius allowed himself to be lulled by the rhythmic thudding, the occasional splash finding its way through the open window and onto his outstretched legs, sending ripples of cool relief into his aching limbs.

A strange light filled the room – the thick clouds had filtered the moonlight into something otherworldly and foreign. It was almost purplish in hue, the way a face would turn purple if it stopped breathing for too long…

Crack.

Sirius’ limbs gave an involuntary jolt as white light slashed into the room, and a streak of ice cold shot up from deep inside his belly to grip around his throat. Gasping and gripping the rumpled sheet, grinding his teeth and biting down hard on his bottom lip he saw his own face in his mind’s eye, all streaks of grey and was-once-quite-handsome and terrible fear, and he screamed to himself “it’s been so long, they’re gone now, they can’t hurt you…”

Crack,

And with it a vision of creeping hands and churning seas and damp walls and the smell of terror and

Crack,

Sirius can’t remember how to get his breath, and he knows the pain in his chest is nothing dangerous really, it just means he needs to breathe, but how can he breathe, how can you breathe normally in this place where every breath might be stolen from you

Crack,

They’re dead and it’s all his fault,

Crack,

They’re dead and it’s all his fault,

Crack,

They’re…

“Sirius!” And suddenly Remus is there, and it takes Sirius a moment because it isn’t 21-year-old Moony staring down at him, but a forty-something-year-old man and the scars are different and will he forgive me, Sirius wonders, will he forgive me for suspecting…

Crack,

“Sirius, Sirius…” his name, over and over again, as if from the end of a long tunnel – there’s a hand there, hanging in the air for him to hold and he takes it, gasping, talking nonsense, utter nonsense about people and places and things from years ago, but Remus is listening in that way he has, that way of listening that makes him such a good teacher, and he just keeps on saying his name, and saying his name, and he even sets him a task, typical Remus to give him an exercise at a time like this, and Sirius is counting the knots in the bedpost, and between them they’re trying to work out how old the tree was that became their bed, and slowly as they go the storm begins to pass, and the noise wanders away to cause havoc somewhere else, and if Sirius is crying it doesn’t matter, because it’s half past three in the morning and all is dark and still.

It's awful, when it happens, but little by little something is exorcised – something in Sirius that he cannot bear to unpick is purged, not in the screaming and the wailing and the “Moony, I can’t breathe”, but in the calm and gentle and the tumbling words that come afterwards. Because Remus did forgive him, and it wasn’t his fault, and it was awful, it was dark and terrifying and when Sirius says that he cannot just pretend it didn’t happen, Remus smiles, he bloody smiles, and nods and says “of course not, Pads.” The dawn comes, Remus is tired and Sirius is shaking – but they can both, finally, breathe.


End file.
